Legal access, private roads, and shared driveways on a Michigan self-directed IRA property

A West Michigan parcel can look exactly like a good buy in the photos and still have one quiet flaw: the road to it. The house sits on level ground, the septic field looks open, the views are real, and the listing price makes sense. None of that tells you whether the IRA would own a recorded right to reach a public street, or whether it would be one more house driving over a neighbor's land on a handshake that was never written down. Access is one of the first things a buyer should pin down, and one of the last things a listing shows.

For a self-directed IRA, the question lands in two places at once. On the property side, a weak access arrangement can change what the parcel is actually usable for: whether the account can build on it, rent it, or sell it without dragging in a neighbor. On the account side, every payment, repair, and document tied to that access has to move through the custodian without the owner doing the work with personal hands or paying from a personal account. The difference between a driveway people use and a driveway the owner is legally entitled to use is not something you discover after the keys change hands, so the review belongs before the offer is written.

First ask whether the parcel legally reaches a public road

The starting point is the route, not the road. Some parcels front a public street and the question is small. Others reach the road through a private lane, a shared drive, a recorded access easement, or a strip across someone else's land. A two-track path that everyone drives is not, by itself, a recorded right. The reliable answer comes from the recorded documents behind the title and the local records, matched to the exact parcel, not the mailing address.

• Confirm on the title commitment and its schedule of exceptions whether access is shown as a recorded easement, a shared drive, a dedicated way, or left unexplained
• Pull the recorded deed, plat, or instrument that grants the access, plus any amendments, releases, or extensions that follow it
• Note which parcel the right runs across, which parcel it serves, and whether the parcel the IRA would buy is actually the one being served
• Check the local zoning or planning office for the driveway or curb-cut approval that governs the crossing to the public road
• Flag anything the title work leaves open, because that is the question the surveyor and the buyer's attorney will have to answer

This site has an article on reading a recorded easement or restrictive covenant, and one on the boundary survey that puts the recorded strip on the ground. This one is narrower and more practical: it is about whether the parcel can lawfully get to and from a public road, who keeps that route usable, and what the account inherits when the route is shared. If the access is clean and recorded, the review is short. If it is not, the rest of the article is where the real cost shows up.

Private roads and shared driveways

A lot of West Michigan property sits behind a private road or a shared driveway, and that is ordinary for rural acreage, lake country, and small-town subdivisions. The ordinary part is the problem, because ordinary means no one thinks about the paper. The documents are the thing to read: who is allowed to use the road, who maintains it, who pays for it, who controls the gate or the culvert, and what happens when the road washes out or the snow comes down for a month.

A recorded access easement may grant the right to drive but say nothing about maintenance, and a road agreement may assign the plowing and the gravel but be signed by people who no longer own the parcels. When the route is a private road, ask whether there is a maintenance or road agreement, who is in it, and whether the IRA's parcel is actually one of the parcels that benefits. A shared driveway that everyone uses but nobody maintains is a budget line waiting to happen, and an agreement that divides repair duties is the document that keeps it from becoming a dispute with the neighbor on the way to the street.

The landlocked and the near-landlocked parcel

A parcel is sometimes called landlocked when it has no direct route to a public road and no recorded right to reach one through another parcel. In practice, the more common situation is near-landlocked: the parcel has a way to the road, but the way depends on a right that is vague, disputed, or was never recorded the way it should be. The risk is that the title is imperfect and that the plan the IRA is buying into may not hold up once the access question gets pressed.

A recorded easement that stops short of the public street, a shared drive with no maintenance clause, or a neighbor's land that the only crossing runs through are the situations to name early. How Michigan property law and the recording statutes treat a particular right, and what the buyer's attorney would do to firm it up, are fact-specific legal questions, not a conclusion to draw from the listing or the survey alone. What is worth doing is not offsetting a known access problem against assumed rent, occupancy, appreciation, or a future buyer. None of those results is guaranteed, and none of them pays for a route the account cannot legally defend. The purchase should make sense with the access question answered, not with it assumed.

Put the route on the ground and check the local approval

The records tell you what is on paper. The survey tells you what is on the ground. Ask the surveyor to show the route the documents describe and the route people actually drive, including where the crossing to the public road sits and whether a culvert, driveway, or drainage feature at the crossing is in good shape. A recorded access strip that has been graded into a dirt lane, or a crossing that floods after a heavy rain, are physical conditions the paper will not catch on its own.

Then check the local approval. The crossing from a private parcel to a public road usually needs a driveway or curb-cut approval from the local zoning or planning office, and for a route that runs over a public or county road, the responsible road authority has a role in how the crossing is built and maintained. For commercial, multi-unit, or occupied property, also compare fire-lane, snow-storage, and service-route requirements with the actual route, because emergency access and tenant or customer access can fail on the same shared lane that the documents describe. The local ordinance and the road authority's current requirements are the things to confirm for the exact address.

Keep access costs and decisions inside the account

Whatever the documents say, the access costs belong to the account. Snow and gravel for a shared drive, a repaired culvert, road-maintenance fees, a recorded modification that firms up the right, and the labor to keep the lane open are account expenses that move through the custodian, not personal charges the owner settles from a personal account. The owner does not shovel the shared drive, does not buy the road repair from a personal card, and does not sign a road agreement in a personal name. IRS guidance and the prohibited-transaction rules are what keep a friendly arrangement with the neighbor from becoming a problem for the whole account, so the custodian, CPA, and attorney should confirm who acts, who pays, and how the documents are titled before the account commits to a maintenance role.

For a rental, keep the access and maintenance procedures consistent and property-related, and have Michigan counsel review the rental policies for the specific property. Tenant selection and maintenance response should follow the Fair Housing Act and applicable Michigan and local protections. Who monitors the shared lane, who keeps the road agreement and the recorded access documents, and how a crossing repair is handled should follow the documents, the lane's condition, and the property's actual needs, not a tenant's or neighbor's protected characteristics.

This article is educational, not legal, tax, financial, surveying, title, fair-housing, retirement-plan, or investment advice. No property, road, easement, or strategy is approved or endorsed by the IRS. Have your own self-directed IRA custodian, CPA, Michigan attorney, professional surveyor, title professional, and the local zoning or road authority review the account, the parcel, the access documents, and the intended use before taking action.

What Rennie can coordinate

The primary sources for the public-rule portions of this review are the recorded access instruments in the county register of deeds, the title commitment and its schedule of exceptions, the professional survey, the local zoning or planning records, and the Michigan recording statutes in MCL chapter 565 alongside the state's highways and roads framework in MCL chapter 850. Those sources describe the framework and the specific parcel. The answer for one parcel and one account comes from the recorded documents, the surveyor's field work, and the buyer's own qualified professionals.

Rennie can help identify West Michigan property and organize the real estate side of the review: locating the access documents on the title commitment, pulling the underlying instruments from the register of deeds, aligning the calendar with the survey and the local approval, and flagging which access questions are worth a closer look. The legal conclusions, the road-maintenance decisions, the tax treatment, and the retirement-account structure stay with the buyer's own attorney, title professional, surveyor, custodian, and CPA.